


The Final Call

by Mamabug1981



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Death, Finding the body, Heavy Angst, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, People die in this fic, Plane Crash, Really dark, Suicide, You've been warned, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 12:43:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14285172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mamabug1981/pseuds/Mamabug1981
Summary: Rob knew the moment he picked up the phone that Rich was not ok.





	The Final Call

**Author's Note:**

> In case you skipped the warning tags, final warning. People die in this fic. It's very dark, it's very triggering. You've been warned.
> 
> This is probably the darkest, most depressing piece I've ever written. I almost didn't post it. I'm still not sure I should have.
> 
> Flashbacks in italics.

Rob sat back against the headboard of their bed, turning a small black box over and over in his hands. Had it really only been a year? As he sat in the dark room by himself, it seemed like it had been so much longer.

He got off the bed with a sigh, setting the box on the side table before crossing the room to the dresser. He picked up a couple slips of paper from the top and returned to the bed. As he laid back down, he could still smell a whiff of Rich’s cologne coming off the pillows.

Rob choked back a sob as he ran his fingertips over the words printed on the paper in his hands. Two round trip tickets to Venice, Italy, first class. He had planned to surprise Rich with the trip for their anniversary, shortly after filming wrapped for the summer hiatus. Setting the tickets in his lap, Rob reached over and grabbed the box off the side table. He opened the box and ran his thumb over the broad platinum band nestled inside.

The polished silver surface was bordered by the lines of sapphires and citrine stones running along each outside edge of the ring. He knew of this great little square in Venice in front of a beautiful old cathedral. Down one of the alleyways was a little hole in the wall café, and an ice cream shop. He had planned to take Rich for a late afternoon lunch, followed by ice cream, before walking him across the square so he could get down on one knee and propose to Rich on the steps of the cathedral.

Considering what happened instead, it was highly ironic that the one thing Rich was afraid of was flying.

The last time he had seen Rich was after the convention in Nashville over a year ago. Rich was planning to stay in town another few days to visit with family, but Rob had to get back to L.A.

_Rich waited patiently in the airport lobby while Rob checked his bags at the counter and collected his boarding pass. As Rob returned with only his carry-on in tow, he accepted his outstretched hand, and the two of them walked towards the security lines._

_They stopped just short of the checkpoint, and Rich turned to cup Rob’s face with his free hand. Rob nuzzled into his hand, and lifted his eyes to see Rich lean in to rest his forehead on Rob’s._

_“Hey, Robbie, it’s only a week, yeah? When I get home, I’ll take you out to that little Italian place you love, ok?”_

_Rob grinned. If only Rich knew about the tickets to Italy that he had stashed away in the drawer of his side table, or the ring box wrapped up in an old pair of socks in the dresser._

_“Yeah, Richie, only a week.” He leaned up to kiss him before letting their hands drop. “I love you.”_

_Rich brought his hand up to Rob’s face with the other and kissed him soundly. “I love you too. Now go, before you miss your flight. Keep that bed at home warm, I’ll be there soon.” He pressed a final kiss to Rob’s forehead, and stepped back. He stuck his hands in his pockets as he watched Rob offer his boarding pass and ID to the agent at the front of the line, then shuck off his belt and shoes before placing them and his bag on the conveyor belt and walking through the body scanner. He watched as Rob retrieved his things, pulling the shoes and belt back on. Rob turned as he hefted the strap of the bag over his shoulder, and waved one more time to Rich. Rich raised a hand to wave back, then watched as Rob turned and walked towards his concourse._

_The moment that Rob glanced back over his shoulder as he turned the corner to the concourse was the last time he would ever see Rich again._

Rob sighed and looked over at the half-packed suitcase collecting dust in the corner where he had thrown it in a fit of rage just a few days later. He never had mustered the will to unpack it. The day everything happened, Rob had been packing for the trip to Venice, the ring box and plane tickets sitting on the dresser where he wouldn’t forget them.

He still panicked a little every time the phone rang.

_The radio droning in the background cut to a news report. Preliminary reports were coming in about a downed plane in the Colorado desert. The cause of the crash and the number of passengers and crew involved were as of yet unknown._

_Rob frowned. As the report ended, he shut the radio off and cued up his favorite YouTube playlist. But even as he danced around the room to the music, gathering up clothes and such and placing them in the suitcase, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, and it wasn’t just the news report he had heard._

_Out in Colorado, Rich finally started to come to. He blinked the dust out of his eyes and started to turn over, crying out as he came into contact with the boulder he had been thrown into head-first when the plane hit the ground and disintegrated. He struggled for several minutes, finally managing to prop himself upright, his back against the rock. He swore as his head spun and throbbed._

_A tickling sensation near his ear caught his attention, and he wiped at it with his hand. His fingers came away bloody. A metallic taste in his mouth told him his nose was probably bleeding too. The nausea, darkening edges in his vision, and the leaden feeling in his limbs probably weren’t good signs either. He fumbled in his front pocket for his phone, and turned it on. Surprisingly, it was undamaged aside from a single crack running diagonally across the screen. Pulling up his contact list, he scrolled down to the number he wanted and pressed the call button, then put it on speaker._

_Rob paused as the song on his phone faded out in favor of Rich’s ringtone. He grinned, dropping the socks in his hand into the suitcase and reaching for the phone. He tapped the icon to answer the call, then put it on speaker phone and placed it on the bed so he could continue to pack as he talked._

_“Hey babe! What’s going on?”_

_“Not much, Robbie.” Rich coughed, and reached up to wipe the trickle of blood off his chin with the back of his hand. “How about you?”_

_Rob frowned at the wet sound of Rich’s cough and the groan that followed. “Hey man, you ok? You sound like you’re coming down with something.”_

_“Yep! Yep. I’m fine, just a bit of a cold.” Rich tried to blink the growing darkness out of his vision, but it didn’t work. His headache was fading into numbness, and it was getting hard to keep his voice clear and level._

_He knew he wasn’t going to make it, and he’d be damned if his last conversation with Rob was a big sloppy sob fest. Rob deserved so much better than that. So much better. He tried to keep up his joking tone. “Hey, so, you know how much I love you, right?”_

_“Yeah Rich, I know. I love you too, so much. I can’t wait for you to get home, I miss you.” Another cough came across the line. Rob wasn’t sure what to make of the odd conversation. “Hey, are you sure you’re ok? What’s going o…”_

_The bottom fell out of Rob’s stomach. No. He suddenly remembered the reports of the plane crash. But Rich wasn’t due home for another couple of days… His mind flashed back to a half-joking conversation they had had a few months before about what they’d do if one of them was so badly injured that they weren’t going to make it. He slowly picked up the phone and fell back against the nearest wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the ground with the phone tightly clutched in his hands._

_“Hey Rob, still there?”_

_Rob swallowed his sob. “Yeah babe, still here.” He kept his voice light. If this was the last time he was going to get to talk to Rich, the absolute last thing Rob wanted for him was to die knowing he had caused him pain._

_“Hey, so how’s the visit going? Any news from the family?”_

_Rob listened as Rich chattered on about who he’d seen and what they had caught him up on. Silent tears streamed down his face as he interjected now and then to keep Rich talking, both of them peppering the conversation with the occasional “I miss you” and “I love you.” Eventually, he could hear Rich slurring and stumbling over his words until he could no longer understand what he was saying. Finally, one last exchange came through loud and clear._

_“Hey Bobbo?”_

_“Yeah Richie?”_

_“I love you, you know that, right? Don’t you ever forget how much I love you.”_

_“Yeah Rich, I know. I love you too, with everything that I have. I will never stop loving you, and don’t you ever forget it.”_

_“Good. Yeah, that’s good…”_

_Rob clung desperately to the phone for one more moment, until not even Rich’s labored breathing sounded through the speakers any longer, just the staticky sound of the Colorado wind scraping across the receiver._

_“Rich? Richie? Babe?” Rob’s heart shattered at the crack of Rich’s phone hitting the ground. He looked at Rich’s name on the screen one more time, in no hurry to close the line, the finally brought one shaky finger up to tap the red icon that would end the call for good._

_Rob didn’t know how long he sat there in silent shock. A few hours passed, Rob not moving a muscle until the ringing phone startled him. It was Rich’s parents, calling to confirm what he already knew._

The details had still been sketchy at the time, but his parents had filled in what they could. The plane had gone down in the southern Colorado desert, near the Utah state line. There were no survivors.

Rich had spent most of the visit with his family chomping at the bit to get home. Apparently, he’d had some big plan for their anniversary, though they didn’t know what it was. But he eventually decided to surprise Rob by flying home a couple days early.  
Rob had later bitten the bullet and gone into Rich’s drawer for a clean pair of socks, as he hadn’t done laundry lately, and found the brochure and reservation confirmation for a week’s stay for two at a little cabin in the woods of Vermont tucked into the back of the drawer.

Until today, the plane tickets and the box with the ring had never once left the top of the dresser. Rob couldn’t bring himself to throw away the tickets, or return the ring. As long as they stayed there, there was always the slimmest hope, however stupid it was, that someday Rich would come walking through that door, calling out Rob’s name in that Southern drawl that always managed to creep back into his voice after a visit home. He would walk in that door, scoop Rob up into a bear hug and spin him around before setting him down and burying his face into his neck for just a moment, taking in a deep breath of Rob’s scent. His hair would smell of his mother’s kitchen and his father’s pipe tobacco, maybe with a small piece of whatever his sister’s kids had managed to smear on him still tangled in the tawny strands.

But what was left of his heart brutally reminded him that that was never going to happen again.

Rob gently set the box aside and got up to head to the bathroom. He couldn’t do this anymore. It was time to let go.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hours later, Matt pounded on the door. Rob had failed to show up for a planned dinner get-together with their friends, and wasn’t answering his phone. Knowing the significance of the day and Rob’s ever-growing depression, he was worried, and headed to the house to check on him.

Not getting an answer to his knock, Matt dug out his spare key. He unlocked the door and walked in, calling Rob’s name into the silence. He dialed Rob’s number again, following the sound of his ringtone into the bedroom.

Rob was stretched out on the bed as if he were sleeping, his right arm folded up over his head on the pillows. His left hand lay on his stomach, the plane tickets still in his grasp. Matt recognized the ring Rob was wearing as the one he had been so excited to propose to Rich with last year. The box lay on the bed beside him. Matt nudged Rob’s shoulder.

“Rob, hey, come on. Wake up man. You missed dinner.”

He frowned at the lack of response. He finally registered how pale Rob was, and the blue tinge to his lips. He looked over to see the water glass and prescription pill bottle on the nightstand, both empty. He pulled his phone out again to call for help, but he already knew it was too late.

Rob wasn’t missing Rich anymore. He had chosen to join him instead.


End file.
